by Jo Smedley
I stared at the fridge which held the crime scene Russ had sketched out. Aside from its homespun look, our incident boards probably didn’t look much different to the ones at the police station, assuming of course they weren’t still trying to make a case against Russ.
“I’m not sure her workplace is going to tell us anything useful,” I said. “Remember where he found her. If my work colleagues had come calling, I’d have been up and about, not sitting down. We’d either all be in the lounge together drinking tea, or I’d have been making them a cuppa in the kitchen. I wouldn’t be sitting down while they walked behind me to grab a knife.”
“But what if she had a close friend on the team?” Irene asked
“Close friend… yep. Okay, I can see me sat down while you made tea behind me. Mind you, I wouldn’t expect you to be knifing me in the back, either.”
“No,” Irene said. “But then… that’s the sort of person we’re looking for. Someone she knew well enough to walk around behind her in her own kitchen and someone who’d think nothing of knifing her in the back.”
“Well, I’m there tomorrow. I’ll see what I can find out,” I said. “But I think we’re looking in the wrong place.” I passed Lillian back the wooden spoon she just handed me. Irene had put together her own ‘heuristic box’. She’d seen mine at home and had assembled one for Lillian to play with at her house now that we were spending more time there reviewing the case.
“Wasn’t her sister due back from Thailand sometime soon?” I ventured. “I remember something about that from the wake.”
“Yes. You’re right.”
“Not that she’d have done it, but she might know who she was close to.” I said.
Irene sighed and looked thoughtfully at the boards. Her sister presented the same problem as everyone else that we’d reviewed on the cupboard post-it note system. There was just no obvious way to break into the family circle at all, and it went without saying that the family was our best avenue for information and, if the crime statistics were true, the most likely location of our killer, too. What we needed was a lucky break.
Irene started rearranging the post-it notes again. Moving them all off to one side in long columns.
“Let’s start again. What we know.”
“Lesley Cooper was killed sometime overnight on the night of the 3rd.” She put up a new post it note with Lesley’s name on it, a small cross and the date.
“We know it was someone close to her, who was familiar enough to her that she’d let them walk behind her in the kitchen without turning around.”
I hmmmed in agreement. This was exactly where we’d got to just an hour ago.
“We know it wasn’t Russ.” She picked up Russ’s post it note and moved it over to another cupboard. She then scrawled “ELIMINATED” in big capitals on another note and stuck that to the same cupboard. I could see what she was doing now, and picked up the post it note with ‘Roller derby team’ written on it and stuck that beside Russ’s note on the cupboard door. Irene added ‘Grandparents’ to the same door. And I moved ‘Sister’ alongside it. That left ‘Mother’ and ‘Stepfather’ on the other cupboard, still not eliminated. I looked at Lillian. I couldn’t ever imagine wanting to kill my own child. But then, we didn’t have any conclusive proof either way.
‘New boyfriend?’ was placed back onto the suspect cupboard. We still had no idea if he existed and if he did who he might be.
I picked up ‘Drugs?’ and moved it to the eliminated board. Irene looked at me, eyebrow raised.
“If she had a drug dealer connection, she’d hardly have left them to make their own tea, or let them walk behind her,” I said. “So if she was doing drugs, they were being provided by someone she knew well, in which case we already have them on the list.”
“Okay.” Irene conceded the note and it stayed on the new eliminated board. We worked through the rest of the notes. The suspect board was definitely dwindling; there were just a couple of girl’s names on there that Russ had provided, but unhelpfully no descriptions, telephone numbers or addresses. They were Lesley’s friends. Neither Irene nor I were particularly surprised Russ didn’t know more about them. Lucus knew virtually nothing about Irene after all. The only other names up there now were the parents and her spiritual counsellor Rose Bloom.
I tapped at the post-it note containing her name. “What do you think?” I asked. “She’s one avenue of enquiry we haven’t tried yet.”
“Do you think she’ll see us coming?” Irene reached for the business card stuck with tape to another cupboard.
*
We pulled up outside Rose’s business premises.
Like the card, her small corner office on Brereton Avenue sported a sign which read “By appointment only”. A request that amused both of us for obvious reasons.
I’d never noticed the building before. It was unimposing and not particularly well maintained. The paint was flaking outside, and the sign above the door was clearly hand painted, possibly by Rose or a member of her family. It was a standard corner unit which would have been a small corner shop one day but had been converted into business office style premises as the large supermarkets had taken over and put most of the independent grocery shops out of business.
There were vertical blinds in all the windows of a type that were common in most offices, and the windows and doors had all been recently double glazed, giving the building a strange half business, half domestic look. The door was of the same construction as you’d find in any home, right down to the plastic architrave moulding and frosted fleur-de-lis in the window. I wondered if she owned or rented the space.
Most houses in Grimsby were narrow and long and although it was a corner plot I was fully expecting the office would follow the same pattern – one room at the front with a trail of other rooms behind it. However I was surprised when we entered the office to find it was simply a square box. There was a door in one side labelled “toilet” and in one corner of the room, a sink and coffee making facilities. Quite clearly this one room was “it”. No wonder she needed the blinds! Anyone calling in for a reading would have been very exposed without them. It was laid out much like a surgery and had a very clinical feel, if you ignored the odd crystal lurking on the shelving.
Rose was waiting for us as we entered, sitting in one corner of the room with a small table and chair which constituted her office. I wondered if she kept notes on all her visitors. She stood up as we walked in and gave Lillian, who was in my arms, a kooky wave and grin which sent her burrowing into my chest, only to peek out again and provide a toothy grin in return. Rose had a friend there, even if Irene and I were entirely sceptical about the whole thing.
“Hello again,” Rose beamed. “I knew when I handed you my card I’d see you both again soon.”
I tried desperately not to catch Irene’s eye and looked instead around the walls at the various posters about crystals and health, Reiki, and bizarrely a poster about saving money on your energy bills. Clearly selling utilities was another string to Rose’s bow but given that she was selling people a total fiction, I guessed selling energy services was easier. After all, that was something more tangible than a green aura or a voice from the dead.
“Thank you for seeing me at short notice,” Irene said, while I scanned the walls.
“Not at all. I could see at the funeral there was something bothering you. Take a seat.” She gestured to the modern leather mastermind-style chair in the middle of the room. “You can sit over there if you like.” She pointed me to another couple of waiting room style chairs against one of the walls. There was a box of toys in the corner and I went over to investigate them with Lillian, while Rose seated herself at a therapeutic angle to Irene; not facing her directly, but off centre.
We had decided Irene would take the lead on this one. She was by far the better actress and as we Lillian with us, some sort of therapy session just wouldn’t have been possible for me.
Irene sat uncomfortably on the edge of the leath
er chair. I wasn’t sure if that was part of the act, or if she was genuinely uncomfortable. I knew I would have been.
I found Lillian a quiet touchy feely book, one of those “That’s not my…” books which were all the rage. It was a simple idea that had taken off and made someone a fortune. Lucus and I were always talking about how good it would be to find a niche like that and generate an income. It would mean I wouldn’t have to go back to work, something neither of us wanted, but which we knew was inevitable if we were to keep our heads above water financially. We’d looked at a few options after Lillian was born and I’d even packed light bulbs for a mail order firm for a short time piecemeal until that particular job dried up. I had until Lillian started school to find something suitable for me to do from home. If not, then it was back into the hospital and all the unsocial hours that would entail. I wondered briefly how much income Rose generated, but then immediately discounted it. It just wasn’t in my nature to run a quack enterprise.
“You’ll be more comfortable if you sit back,” Rose said. “You need to relax a little. You’re very anxious at the moment and it’s masking everything else.”
Irene hadn’t said exactly what her plan was for the visit. She’d kept it very vague, both with me and with Rose when she called to make the appointment. So I had no idea what she intended. She planned to “wing it”. I watched her sit back in the chair and compose herself. She looked more relaxed, but if I wasn’t mistaken her brain was incredibly active behind those grey/blue eyes of hers.
“You can close your eyes if it helps,” said Rose.
Irene did so, and I turned to page two of the book and got Lillian to feel a nose that was too bumpy, an incredibly silly concept for a toddler.
“So…,” said Rose in a quieter, soothing voice. “Tell me about what’s bothering you.”
“It’s the funeral,” said Irene. “I just felt terribly cold, as if something was just, well, not quite right. Like she wasn’t settled.”
I looked at her. I wasn’t sure what I had expected her to discuss in her treatment session, but this wasn’t it. Then again, what a perfect way to get Rose to tell us what she knew!
“Hmmm, I know what you mean,” Rose nodded, unseen by Irene behind her closed eyelids. “You are probably sensitive to the other side. It’s not unusual for someone who’s sensitive to feel something for the first time when something like this has happened. Murders aren’t common. It’s rare for us to attend a funeral of an unhappy spirit. And you are right. She isn’t settled. Nor was her father.”
“Do you think I felt him too?” Irene asked innocently. “Was he that older presence I felt?” Where was she dredging all this nonsense from? Wherever it was, Rose was lapping it up.
“Yes. Quite probably. Her father has been visiting her for some time.”
“I see.”
Rose was silent for some time and I thought she was reviewing Irene’s aura or something, but then her tone changed. “Why are you here Mrs Franks?”
Irene opened her eyes, sensing the stern rebuke in Rose’s voice.
“I can tell when I’m being played. Why did you come?”
“You know the family.” Irene studied her face and then sat forwards in her chair. Clearly she’d decided to come clean. “You mentioned her father at the funeral. We wanted to know what you know.”
“Why?”
“Russ didn’t kill Lesley,” Irene said. “We want to find out who did.”
“I see. And you don’t think the police will do that?”
“They’re looking in all the wrong places.”
“How do you know?”
“Russ is still in custody,” Irene said simply. “Have you met him?”
“No. Lesley consulted me here. I don’t do house calls.” Mentally I ticked her off the suspect list. I was sure Irene was doing the same. If Rose didn’t do house calls, then she couldn’t have killed Lesley, but she knew things about the family we didn’t. She was our best lead.
“Have the police interviewed you?”
“No. Why would they?”
“Exactly.” Irene looked at me, as if to underline once again that we were better placed to solve the murder enquiry than they were, despite our lack of connections. We were thinking outside of the box.
“Why were you seeing Lesley?”
“Client confidentiality.” Rose sat back. “I really can’t say.”
“She’s dead,” Irene said.
“I know. But revealing her secrets won’t bring her back, and besides, you don’t have to live with her. I do.” Rose looked pointedly around the room as if Lesley was with us in spirit. I shuddered involuntarily, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“Can you tell us anything without breaking her… trust?” Irene asked.
“Like what?”
“Something from the public record maybe that we don’t know. Her father. What happened there?”
“He disappeared. It was a long time ago. He wasn’t declared legally dead until ‘97, but I knew long before that. No one believed me. Her mother is very closed off. Lesley, Lesley was the open one.”
“Lesley always thought something had happened to him. She always…,” Rose stopped, she looked around her, her face changing, falling somehow, adjusting into something non-Rose. I felt my skin prickle. I really was suggestible… Rose looked pointedly at me as if sensing the weakness.
“Dark. Cold. Wet. Heavy.” The four adjectives dropped out of her mouth like a damp thuds. Like the final closing of a weighty book. Four final words from the great beyond.
Rose watched me watching her and then noticeably brightened and adopted a more conversational pitch. “That’s what she always said. ‘Dark, cold, wet, heavy’. It was quite unnerving. She was more aware than I was sometimes.”
“You counselled her?” Irene didn’t seem as disturbed by Rose’s pronouncements. Rose looked around and then nodded as if receiving approval from an unseen source.
“Not so much counselling as support. She wanted to be hypnotised. Said she wanted to regress, regress back to her childhood to the last time she saw her dad. See if she could uncover any clues.”
“Did she?”
“Not when we were together. But I gave her one of these.” She handed Irene a dark polished stone. “It helps with self-hypnosis. Lesley was working on it in her own time. Without me.”
“I see.” Irene turned the smooth pebble over in her hand. There was nothing remarkable about it and it certainly wasn’t going to tell us what happened to Lesley. She handed it back to Rose with a controlled reverence. Rose took it and carefully placed it back inside its padded cardboard box like it held some hidden powers.
“And were the family happy? Can you tell me that much?”
“They seemed so,” Rose nodded. “Her mother remarried soon after Lesley’s father was declared dead. She’d been living with Pete, that’s Lesley’s stepfather, a while before then, but, well, you can’t really divorce a dead man, can you? Lesley always got along well with Pete. He came into their lives quite young. Made a home with them. He was their dad in all but genes. They were a close family.”
“You wanted to speak to her mother at the funeral?” I prompted. “She brushed you off.”
“That was nothing.” Rose coloured a little. “Bad timing, that’s all. I should have known better. Gill doesn’t believe in, well,” she gestured around the room, “this. Thought I was upsetting Lesley. Didn’t want any word from the other side. Doesn’t believe there is an other side to have word from.”
“And did you?” Irene asked. “Have word from Lesley I mean?”
Rose looked at the floor, and I could see her brow furrow, trying to decide whether to tell us something. Perhaps something of use, perhaps not. Given that it was from the “other side” I doubted it would be very useful to the investigation, but perhaps Irene was just pandering to her, hoping to find out something of use.
Rose looked up. “No. No, I didn’t.” Her watery stare dared Irene to ch
allenge her. I was surprised Irene didn’t, as it was clear even to me that Rose was lying, but maybe Irene thought it better not to push it. Maybe a “word from the beyond” which itself was unsubstantiated except through Rose was hardly worth challenging her for.
Chapter Sixteen
It may have seemed like we had left Rose’s with no answers, but Irene was elated.
“Two murders,” Irene said as I got into the front seat of the car. “Not one… two. There’s a connection. There has to be.”
“Two murders?”
“The father. Now the daughter.” Irene started the car. “They’re connected. Have to be. And Rose is lying.”
“That much I worked out,” I said. “But about what? And he’s missing, presumed dead,” I corrected.
“No. He’s dead.” Irene pulled out into the road. “Lesley must have seen something when she was younger. It’s what she was trying to remember.” She waved a hand at me, warding off the objections she could see were coming. “Ignore the mumbo jumbo rubbish a moment. What do we know? One – Lesley believed her father was dead, why else would you consult a spiritualist? Two – she wanted to be hypnotised, because she thought she knew something, something she couldn’t bring into her conscious mind, but something important about her father’s disappearance. Three – Rose knows something. Perhaps Lesley told her something THIS side of the grave. She’s frightened. Rose, that is.” Irene added, just in case I was in any doubt.
“Frightened of what?”
“I’m guessing frightened of the same thing happening to her. If Lesley found something out, then maybe Rose is worried the same person who killed Lesley will come after her.”